Month: January 2014

Have you ever thought about the act of punishing someone? What exactly does it mean? It seems to have no clear definition because a punishment can be anything. Usually someone is punished because someone does something that another person does not like. The type of punishment can range from spanking to crucifixion. The question I have is what benefit comes from a punishment? If whatever crime or sin a person has done has caused harm to someone else, then they could try to repair the damage they have done. This is called correction, not punishment.

The trouble comes when something is done that cannot be repaired. If someone is murdered or raped, no amount of work on the part of the offender comes close to fixing the problems they have caused. What can be done about this? This is something that bothers me.

I feel that I have done some damage in the past by things I have said or done. Mostly, it has been ignorance and fear that led me to do things that I did not want to do. As far as I know, I have not done anything which causes permanent damage to anyone. Those who have completely ruined or destroyed the life of another may feel bad, but what can they do? I think that the only cure for some things is to prevent them from happening in the future.

Pregnancy is a perfect example of relevance. When a baby is living inside a woman, then she and the baby are relevant to each other. This is probably the most extreme relevance that someone can possibly have. I imagine it must feel weird to have something else living inside you. I know that as a man I will never experience this but I imagine it.

There is something else very weird about pregnancy. Even the women who care nothing about their physical health will suddenly try to eat healthier and do whatever it takes to make sure that their baby is healthy. Everything that woman eats or drinks is relevant to the baby. Often women become so much healthier that the difference can be seen even on their faces.

I am impressed by the effects of pregnancy and the babies that are the end result. What I cannot understand is that we live in a culture that seems to have something against women and babies.

Is it not a little bit weird to pretend that women or babies are irrelevant to society? After all, everyone alive today was a baby at some time. Their mother was a woman who was pregnant at least once. I see their relevance. When will the rest of the world see it?

When something is supernatural, it goes beyond what I can see, hear, feel, taste, or smell. This is why I no longer want to base decisions on anything that is described to be supernatural.

I am very natural. I have spent my whole life trying to understand the things that I can see and hear. There is much I do not understand. I do not deny the existence of the supernatural, but if I cannot see, hear, or touch it, then it is irrelevant by definition. I cannot link, connect, or relate to it.

Others may claim to have a connection with things that I do not. This does not mean that I should automatically take their word for it. What I do know is that the thoughts and feelings other people have is a mystery that I cannot know. I suppose I could say that this is an example of something that may be supernatural to me but very natural to another person.

When people work hard at doing something, they want some type of reward or satisfaction. Often this comes automatically. My reward for cleaning laundry is that I have clean clothes to wear. My reward for showering is that I don’t stink as much. My reward for picking my nose is that I get the boogers out.

For everything that I do, there must be some type of reward. I do not always know what the reward is but for every action I do there is a reason, motive, goal, purpose, result, or reward. I do not always know which actions I must take to achieve a goal that I have.

Most of the time, the actions that I do are meant to avoid some type of pain. I eat to avoid hunger, drink to avoid thirst, and put on my coat to avoid freezing. These are reasons for doing things but they bring me no permanent happiness.

I want to do things that have a lasting reward. I get a reward out of making geometric shapes or from writing books. The reward is something that to me seems natural, physical, material, or relevant. Something I can see, hear or touch.

I am still working on understanding the things that I do and what other people do. Without understanding, there is no relevance. I think that the reward that I am aiming for is to be relevant to myself and others. I call it the reward of relevance.

Think about seven and eleven. Are they relevant to each other? The answer is yes! There are reasons for their relevance.

For those who look at “seven” and “eleven” as words, the answer is that they both end the same with their spelling and sound. For those who think in the context of numbers, seven and eleven are both odd numbers (not divisible by two) as well as prime numbers (having only two factors).

We can learn much about relevance in this way. Sometimes things can be relevant in more than one way. It is a matter of not only defining terms but also defining the reason for their relevance.

As a math geek, I find some numbers to be more relevant than others. It all depends on how they are used.

To me, math is not something to be learned. It is something that I experience. It is both art and science. You could say that it is about the relationship that numbers have to everything that I see in the world. Not everyone sees it this way but I am fine with this. I am not religious anymore about my arithmetic. Instead, I try to use numbers in a way that is relevant to others who may not understand the arithmetic and geometry that make their lives possible.

There are many ways to communicate over the internet. I have found that writing is the most relevant way to communicate. There is certainly a place for sound and video recordings, but I write more than anything else. I will give some reasons.

Writing is a slow process. It makes me think very deeply about what I am saying. I do not feel the same time pressure when writing as I do when I record myself talking in a video. I am sure that what I say in my writing is much more relevant to what I am thinking.

While writing something may be a slow process, it allows me to publish what I have written at the highest speed. The simple copy-and-paste method allows me to write something and then post it wherever I want. It means I can make sure that what I work so hard on can be preserved even if a tornado blows away my laptop.

Writing is the only type of human communication that can be printed in a book. Once printed, a reader can enjoy it without requiring electricity. Because of this I find it essential to write and publish books.

The great thing is that I can later convert my words into an audio form if I want. I can overcome the limitations of my slow thought process if I have something prepared already.

Temple Grandin is an autistic woman who is an expert on the behavior of cattle. She has also written books. She is relevant to me because she provided me with the evidence I needed to overcome a lot of the trouble I had in communicating with other people. I never knew that I could actually do something to learn the way that other people think. It is a slow process for an autistic person to learn the hardships of the adult world where I am around people who talk, but do not say anything I understand.

I would encourage anyone who would like to understand autism to look at Temple’s own website.

It is possible for even those with social handicaps to improve in communication. I found that I always had a lot to say but never could find the words. After I watched the movie about the life of Temple Grandin, I knew it was possible.